


The Echoes of Time

by stilesune



Series: Lost In The Echo [2]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Future Fic, M/M, Stiles is emotionally constipated in the future, angst angst angst, past relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-03
Updated: 2012-08-03
Packaged: 2017-11-11 09:17:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,031
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/476978
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stilesune/pseuds/stilesune
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Derek’s fist rattles the entire desk, wood splintering beneath as blood drips from inside the tight muscles. When he unclenches his hand, neither of them wince at the sound of his claws retracting from his palm. “My wolf smells the gunpowder on you. It thinks you’re a hunter. It doesn’t remember you.”</p>
<p>“It was familiar with me last week.”</p>
<p>“Sex isn’t the wolf, Stiles. It’s me.” Derek admits irritably, snapping his mouth closed after a minute like he’d shared something he didn’t want the rest of the world to know.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Echoes of Time

With the good Sheriff dead and his position needing immediate filling, the Mayor turned to Stiles in an act of desperation to take over the understaffed department. He was supposed to be on his way back out of town, supposed to be returning to his life of being a small time cop in a big time city. But the thought of sitting where his father had? Protecting the town his father had gave his life for?

He’d be bullshitting anyone by saying he didn’t like that idea. Didn’t like the idea that maybe he could make his father proud, make his mother proud, as they hopefully watched him from wherever they were.  
  
So running off that warm feeling in his chest and picking up the phone to call his boss in Seattle to tell him that he quit without much thought into what it would actually mean? Probably not the best idea. Just like it hadn’t been smart to tell the Mayor he’d do it when the only reason he was there was to accept a medal in his father’s honor. It wasn’t like he even wanted to stay in Beacon Hills where death seemed to favor the people he loved.  
  
The first hint was when Scott entered the office that was set up like a shrine to the senior Stilinski since his murder. He was nervous, more jittery than restless as he stared at his childhood best friend packing his father’s personal items into a box to replace them with his own.  
  
“Did you ask Derek if you could do this?”  
  
The weak tooth in the back of his mouth protested angrily as he clenched his teeth, nostrils flaring as he tightened his fingers around the grip of the box. The cardboard cutting into his palms brought a sliver of calm back to him. Long enough to respond. “I don’t need his approval. The majority of the population doesn’t know that werewolves exist outside of shitty television shows and even shittier movie adaptations of books, so you know what? As far as I’m concerned, the fact that less than ten people in Beacon Hills recognize it as werewolf territory doesn’t come close to the eclipsing two thousand others that don’t. I’m here for them. To protect them from the likes of your kind.”  
  
That shuts Scott down in a way that Stiles has never seen, the pain raw on his face before he turns and walks away.  
  
Stiles doesn’t feel guilt.

===

The department is mostly rookies – cheaper to pay than the veterans that had been with the force since his dad was green. He recognizes a couple from when he was a senior, the younger kids coming in from middle school and looking like they were going to puke into their lockers… pretty much nothing’s changed then.  
  
There’s only six of them and only one seems like a promising deputy. She wears dog tags around her neck and looks like she could gut you with laser beams from her eyes or slice your throat with her cheekbones. But when he sees her in the break room snacking on doughnuts and fulfilling the cliché, he learns that it’s just about having to feel like she should live up to a tough persona from being a soldier and to keep up with a male dominated office. It doesn’t take long for that to break and she speaks fondly of his father.  
  
The other five are all guys straight from the academy and Marjorie – the dispatch woman who’s been around since Stiles was in diapers and will probably still be sitting in the same chair with her flaming red curls in a beehive and bright blue eyeshadow when she’s dead. He’s also pretty sure she’s been chewing the same piece of gum for thirty years. – gives him the gossip on them immediately.  
  
One is a new dad who needs flexible hours and will always volunteer for the night shift because it’s their quietest time which helps him catch up on sleep after running after a toddler all day while his girlfriend’s at work. Another is apparently sleeping with the Mayor’s daughter and thought he’d be getting the Sheriff’s position despite only having two years of actual experience outside of the academy. The third and fourth remind Stiles of him and Scott when they were in high school and the fact that they have guns sort of terrifies Stiles into keeping an eye on them. The fifth is the other promising one, seemingly serious about his job. He’s a weird hybrid of Jackson in that he was adopted and Isaac in that he was abused, but without the douchebaggery or leather kink. He became a cop to make sure he could help others like Sheriff Stilinski did when he got him away from his adoptive parents and helped him get emancipated and squared away. It’s mostly a good crew to have, but he stills needs more.  
  
Stiles is looking over the personnel files for the umpteenth time, feeling like he’s weighted by the ghost of his father and living up to his expectations, when his door opens with a crack against the wall, lock leaving an indent in the plaster. It slammed closed just as furiously, the sheet of glass shaking in its frame.  
  
“What is your issue?” Lydia demands, hands perching on her hips as she stares him down with narrowed eyes.  
  
“My therapist says I wasn’t hugged enough as a kid. What’s yours?” He deadpans, closing the files unhurriedly, the picture of calm as Lydia Martin death stares him.  
  
“Do you know what you’re doing? Do you understand, Stilinski?” She asks, stepping closer to the desk until she can steeple her fingers on the top of it and lean in close. “Not asking Derek? Not having the courtesy? You know that outsiders that know of the pack are supposed to do that! I even had to when I came back from MIT!”  
  
The fact that he’s considered an outsider in his hometown makes his stomach clench but refuses to let it show that it’s bothered him. “I don’t care.”  
  
Lydia’s mouth snaps closed at that, straightening up to cross her arms underneath her breasts. It’s a movement that normally draws any man’s gaze to her and lures him under her spell. Stiles resolutely focuses on the closed files. “Something happened.” The _with Derek_ is implied but thankfully left unsaid.  
  
“Yeah,” he snaps angrily, standing to mimic her previous position on his desk, “you guys got my father killed. Thanks for orphaning me. Now if you don’t mind, I have case files to go over and staff to get to know. Get out.”  
  
She exits with a flurry of strawberry blonde hair and pink skirts trailing behind her. The pain of another person he once loved walking out of his door is little more than a twinge.  
  
===  
  
He’s visited by Danny next who doesn’t rant or rave, but sits calmly and asks Stiles. No demands or threats of the sort either. Danny gets through a rousing speech about how they all missed Stiles and having the Sheriff around gave them that piece of him, before Stiles is interrupting to offer Danny a job in their bare bones tech department. And by bare bones he means one other person who mostly plays World of Warcraft while drinking massive slushies that leave sticky imprints on keyboards and linoleum flooring.  
  
Or did, seeing as Danny will be replacing him.  
  
They all trickle in to see him at one point or another, even Derek’s original pack before they all bled together to form one. None of them are happy with his decision to exclude them from his plans, and the fact that they think he should is what gets to Stiles the most. They seem to forget that it’s a two way street and even after he left, no one had reached out to him to fix anything. Not even Scott. Melissa had been at his graduation, but Scott hadn’t. That had stung worse than anything.  
  
He was contemplating new hires – maybe Matt from high school was still around and interested in being a crime scene photographer or maybe he was the photographer for the local paper already, he couldn’t remember – when the shadow fell across his desk. He’s a little surprised that Derek can just walk into the police department with little fanfare, but he supposes that the staff was more concerned with acne and boners back when Derek Hale was wanted for murder. Not that Stiles could talk or judge. He was pretty much in the same situation, just a few years older.  
  
“You’re making a mistake here.”  
  
“I’ve made a lot of them in my life, several of them since I’ve been back in Beacon Hills,” he gives Derek a pointed look, trying to forget the way his face had contorted as he came inside Stiles less than a week ago. Going down that road outside of his grief would not be smart. “But this isn’t one of them.”  
  
“You know the rules. You come back to town after ten years, after ten years without our wolves being exposed to your scent, ten years to have it change and you don’t give us the courtesy of telling me you’re staying?” The anger in Derek’s voice is restrained, everything else carefully blank.  
  
“If you’re pissed ‘cause you thought that fucking me would make me compliant again…”  
  
“That’s not what this is about!” Derek’s fist rattles the entire desk, wood splintering beneath as blood drips from inside the tight muscles. When he unclenched his hand, neither of them wince at the sound of his claws retracting from his palm. “My wolf smells the gunpowder on you. It thinks you’re a hunter. It doesn’t remember you.”  
  
“It was familiar with me last week.”  
  
“Sex isn’t the wolf, Stiles. It’s me.” Derek admits irritably, snapping his mouth closed after a minute like he’d shared something he didn’t want the rest of the world to know. “Point is, it thinks you’re a threat. Come the full moon, if you’re out and it senses you and I’m not in control enough… you’ll be in danger because you’re a stubborn asshole who couldn’t come tell me you were coming back permanently and couldn’t let me let the wolf assess you.”  
  
“Your wolf,” Stiles stands to be eye level with the Alpha, “Isn’t a separate entity from you, Derek. You told us that a million times while we all trained. If your wolf sees me as a threat, maybe you should examine what that really means before you come into my office making demands. You really don’t want the law enforcement on your bad side.”  
  
===  
  
The last visit that night after he’d poured himself a finger of whiskey - his fourth of the night but semantics - at least had the decency to knock, but isn’t much of a surprise. The person on the other side of the barrier isn’t either.  
  
He’s barely inside the house before Chris Argent is plopping a wooden box into Stiles’ free hand, “Just in case. They’re made for standard police issues. Your father had a supply too, in case any of the Hale pack went rabid and couldn’t be brought back like Boyd a few years ago.” Stiles doesn’t show that he didn’t know about Boyd, just stares at the box. He knows without looking that they’re wolfsbane bullets because why else would Chris be standing in his living room at twelve thirty at night? “He didn’t like carrying them though because he felt guilty.”  
  
The fact that his father had access to these bullets and hadn’t be able to use one to kill the werewolf that eviscerated him brought the anger back. He put the box down roughly on the hutch, immediately going for the drawer where his lock box was. Retrieving it and punching in the code to unlock it, he pulled out his gun. Popping loose the clip, he started to thumb out the standard bullets only to replace them with the wolfsbane ones as quickly as he’d emptied it.  
  
“What do you know about the werewolf that killed my father?”

The clip slid home.


End file.
